In order to facilitate maintenance, diagnosis, and repair of vehicles, such as cars and trucks, vehicles have on-board diagnostics (OBD) available from the on-board vehicle computer which controls and monitors engine operation of most vehicles available today. The OBD is available through an OBD port located in the vehicle, which is coupled by a cable to computerized diagnostic machinery when the vehicle requires maintenance by repair technicians.
The OBD port uses a communication protocol and connector standard presently referred to as On-Board Diagnostic Level 2 (OBDII) published by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) as an industry standard for vehicular diagnostics in all automobiles manufactured after 1996. The OBD port and vehicular information from this port, such as vehicle speed, engine RPM, or air intake temperature, has traditionally been limited for diagnostic and repair purposes. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,884,202 describes a modular wireless diagnostic test and information system having a vehicular communication interface to the OBD port, and a user interface and command module for diagnostic programs upon such data received from the OBD port and other wireless meters connected to the engine. Other uses for vehicular information from this OBD port have been suggested, but these have been for a complex in-car network using a software upgradeable dashboard, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,253,122. This patent provides graphical images of dashboard instruments, such as may be used by a person in operating the vehicle. It would be desirable to provide a system which graphically displays information from the OBD of a vehicle for entertainment purposes, rather than for diagnostic and repair of a vehicle or for dashboard instrumentation.
Although non-dashboard displays have been provided in vehicles for entertainment purposes, they are for TV, video or DVD players, or for playing electronic games, and thus do not provide visualization of graphics related to information from the OBD of the vehicle.